VIEWPOINT: Thanksgiving: So Much More

How many of us observe Thanksgiving Day as a day of turkey, pumpkin pie, and football, with some thought to the Pilgrim’s Thanksgiving (1621), but give minimal thought to God’s blessings?  Thanksgiving should be much more.

We know we’re to express thanksgiving often: “In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus” (1 Thessalonians 5:18), but we often don’t.  Yes, Thanksgiving Day was created when America was truly Christian, before cultural Marxism’s (wokism) assault.  Even so, Thanksgiving remains a federal holiday in which we can express our gratitude for God’s blessings and others’ favorable actions toward us.

Gratitude – expressed through thanksgiving – is an esteemed virtue within Christendom.  Virtues are God’s standards of moral goodness/moral excellence concerning how we’re to live, as opposed to Satan’s standards of vices and sin.  Gratitude is a subset of “love,” that virtue most identified with God: “He who (doesn’t) loves (doesn’t) know God, for God is love” (1 John 4:8).

America’s Thanksgiving originated from Western Civilization, with its Biblically based Judeo-Christianity moral values.  Ancient Israel included a sacrifice of thanksgiving to God.  “And the LORD spoke to Moses saying…  And when you offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving to the LORD, offer it of your own free will” (Leviticus 22:26, 29); and “(It’s) good to give thanks to the LORD…” (Psalm 92:1).

New Testament examples of thanksgiving follow: “And let the peace of God rule in your hearts … and be thankful”… “Continue earnestly in prayer, being vigilant in it with thanksgiving” (Colossians 3:15; 4:2), and “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness … because, although they knew God, they (didn’t) glorify Him as God, nor were thankful …” (Romans 1: 18, 21).  I’ve read, “Thanksgiving is Trinitarian… that God the Father is the object of thanksgiving, God the Son is the person through whom thanksgiving flows, and God the Holy Spirit is the source of thanksgiving.”  When we fail to practice the spirit of Thanksgiving, we become like ingrates and gluttons.

While colonial America observed thanksgivings, President Washington was the first president to designate (1789) the last Thursday in November of that year as a day of “public thanksgiving.”

Other presidents intermittently declared days of thanksgiving until Thanksgiving Day crusader Sarah Hale convinced President Lincoln to declare (1863) an annual national day of “Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens,” for the last Thursday in November, calling on the American people to also, “with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience… fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty hand to heal the wounds of the nation.”

Most Americans came to accept the first Pilgrim’s Thanksgiving (1621)  – with its symbolism and despite its controversy – as America’s first Thanksgiving, as described in Plymouth Colony Governor William Bradford’s Of Plymouth Plantation and Plymouth founder Edward Winslow’s short account written in December 1621 and rediscovered in the mid-19^th century.

Happy Thanksgiving!  This federal holiday – our national tradition for recognizing gratitude – is our opportunity to thank God forthrightly for His blessings bestowed upon our Constitutional Republic, our families, and ourselves.

Donavan “Mark” Quimby
Shenandoah Christian Alliance